Good news, Southland fans: It looks like the stories of Officer Ben Shermans professional free-fall and Det. Lydia Adams journey to juggle motherhood and case work wont wind up as unsolved mysteries: TNT has renewed the gritty (oftentimes harrowing) L.A.-set police drama for a 10-episode fifth season.

Season after season, critics and fans alike have championed TNTs Southland as one of televisions best dramas. This year, the show has not only solidified its impassioned fan base, but also picked up some new young-adult devotees along the way, Michael Wright, president and head of programming for TNT, TBS, said in a statement.

Southland this past season averaged more than 2.9 million total viewers when factoring in Live+7 DVR playback, while its delivery of Adults 18-49 grew three percent from Season 3.

I dont, because when it a short and tight season the writers are force to something that very few of the writers seem to be able to do and that is write a story line.

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I was not impressed with the writing of the post-NBC episodes, especially this last season. I was disappointed that the writers started including typical cop-show cliches like overcompensating female cop (Jessica Tang) and former good cop takes law into his own hands (Ben Sherman). You could almost see their boredom as they got near the end of the season, and the season finale just didn't have the punch I expected.

While the pieced-together Season 2 didn't make any sense overall, at least the individual episodes had skilled writing. If it takes 13 or more episodes per season to get that kind of quality scripting from the writers, so be it.